Sunday, January 25, 2015

+
I now I’ve shared this with you before—many several times. But years ago—back in
my carefree late teens and early 20s—I became a bit disillusioned with the
Church—capital C. I sort of floated away from church for several years. I questioned many things. And I became a bit
of an agnostic. Actually, I’m still a bit of an agnostic. On some things. I think we all are to some extent, if we are
honest with ourselves.

An
agnostic is essentially anyone who “doesn’t know.” And in this sense, we don’t
know about God and the greater mysteries. Let’s face it—we don’t know. We can
hope. We can have faith. But, ultimately, as long as we are on this side of the
veil, we don’t know for certain.

Nor
should we. Because we don’t know, our faith
becomes more vital to us. And that’s a good thing.

Last
Wednesday, one of those people who helped the agnostic twenty-something old
Jamie come back to the Church and have a deeper faith in Christ, died. Marcus
Borg was—and still is—a very important theologian. Of course, I could relate to him to some
extent. He was raised Lutheran in North Dakota. So was I.

And
his Lutheran upbringing was important to him. He wrote often about Lutheran
theology (though not always positively about Lutheran theology). He attended
Concordia College in Moorhead. He later became Episcopalian. His wife is an
Episcopal priest. His theology, although
liberal, was very non-abrasive.

Many
of us so-called liberals often found agnosticism and heady theology about the
validity of the “historical” Jesus, although intellectually stimulating, a bit
lacking in an applicable way. A lot of liberal theology did not do a very good
job of comforting one when one was diagnosed with cancer, for example, or mourning
the death of a loved one. In those
moments, I hate to say, it really didn’t is Jesus actually said, “I am the
Resurrection and the Life,” or if it was something his followers attributed to
him. Borg knew that. And what Borg did
for people like me was he brought back a faith-centered Jesus for us, without
us having to sacrifice our intellectual mindset on things.

For
me, when I first read his book, Meeting
Jesus again For the First Time—a truly

radical book in many ways—I was
blown away. This was the book I needed
at that time in my life.

Especially
his writing on the so-called “pre Easter” and “post-Easter” Jesus. It was a book that essentially gave me back
Jesus, at a time when I needed Jesus. And yet I still could be a “liberal”
Christian.

I
essentially could talk about Jesus and pray to Jesus and believe in Jesus, no
matter how “true” or “factual” much facts were from the Historical Jesus
theologians. There are many people—several
who are here at St. Stephen’s this morning—who are Christian to this day
because of Marcus Borg. There are people
here today who love Jesus and for whom Jesus is a reality in their lives
because of Marcus Borg. And for that, I
am grateful.

Diana
Butler Bass, another important theologian in the Church today, wrote on her
Facebook page this past week, that she was “hoping fr an experience of the
post-Easter Borg. I like that.

What
Borg’s books did for me anyway was helped turn me around theologically and
spiritually.

And
in today’s Gospel we find Jesus essentially doing the same thing. And he does it with one little word.

“Repent.”

I
think in our contemporary Christian society, we have found this word hijacked
by some of the fundamentalist-minded people in our churches. Repent is often seen as a shaming word. We
seem to hear it only in the context of “repenting” of our sins. Certainly
that’s a correct usage of the word. When
we turn from our sins—from all the wrongdoings we’ve done in life—we are
repenting.

But
I think it’s a good thing to examine the word a bit closer and see it in a
context all of its own. The Greek word we find in this Gospel is μετανοειτε,
which means to change our mind. But the
word Jesus probably used was probably based on the Hebrew word, Shubh, which another great theologian
who also influened me, Reginald Fuller, translates as “to turn around 180
degrees, to reorient one’s whole attitude toward Yahweh in the face of the
God’s coming kingdom.”

When
we approach this word with this definition, all
of a sudden it takes on a whole new meaning and attitude. What is Jesus
telling us to do? Jesus is telling us we
must turn round and face this mystery that is God. We must
adjust our thinking away from all the worldly things we find ourselves
swallowed up within and focus our vision on God. Or,
rather, we should adjust our thinking, our vision of the world, within the
context of God.

However
you want to look at it, is about seeing anew. It is about changing the way we think and see
and do things. As you can imagine, this
kind of command isn’t a popular one. We
don’t like change of this sort. We are a
complacent lot for the most part. We
enjoy our predicable, daily lives.

I
certainly am the most guilty of this. I
find a certain comfort in my daily schedule. It’s not very exciting. But it is comfortable. And it’s easy. In those complacent moments, I don’t find
myself thinking too deeply about God…or anything else for that matter.

This
of course brings up probably our biggest point. For the most part, we don’t think. We
don’t have rational, concentrated thoughts about our faith or the world. We are usually thinking about what is right before
us right now. We are thinking about what
we are going to do next, what we are going to eat or drink for lunch or supper.
We think about what our children are
doing or not doing or about what our spouses are doing or not doing, or about
the work at hand. We are thinking about what needs to be thought
about at that moment.

In
that crush of thoughts, thoughts of God don’t come up so easily. What Jesus is telling us in today’s Gospel,
when he tells us to repent, is, essentially, this:

He
is telling us to mindful. Be mindful of
God. Be mindful of the good news. Be aware.

As
some of you know, I have had a deep interest in Zen Buddhism since my early
20s. For me, Zen is more than just a
religion. It is a philosophy—it is a perception, a way of seeing things.

A
very popular image in Zen Buddhism is that of a fish. A fish is seen as something that never sleeps.
It is always awake. As such is held up
as symbol of a truly enlightened person. It is a symbol of the goal of what one
does in Zen. Like a fish, one should always be awake and aware.

What
we find here is a very simple lesson in how to live fully and completely. Essentially,
this is what Jesus is telling us as well.

Repent.

Wake
up.

Turn
around and see.

God
is here.

Jesus
is saying to us, Stop living foggy, complacent lives. Repent. He is saying, Quit being drones, mindlessly
going about your duties.

Wake
up and think.

Open
your eyes and see.

God
has come among you.

God
is here, speaking to you words of joy and gladness.

He
is saying, Listen. Hear what God is saying.

Look.
See God walking in your midst.

And
when we see God, when we hear God speaking to us through Jesus, we find that we
too want to do what those disciples in our Gospel reading for today did.

We
want to follow after him. We want to be
followers of Jesus. Being followers of
Jesus means that we are awake and we see.

People
like Marcus Borg have helped us to wake up and see, even if we are a bit
agnostic about it all.

So
let us truly follow Jesus in our lives. We
don’t need to do it in a flamboyant fashion. We can truly follow Jesus by striving to be
spiritually awake. We can follow Jesus
by allowing ourselves to spiritually see. And when we hear and see, when we become, in a
sense, fish—awake, aware, not sleeping spiritually—it is then that we can
become truly effective fishers.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

+ When I taught theology at the University
of Mary, one of the topics we often discussed was vocation. Vocation as opposed
to avocation. Vocation is a good thing to discuss. A vocation is something we
are called to do. The root word of vocation is “voce” meaning “voice. It is a
calling. It is we are called to do. Our deepest desire. An avocation is the job
we do which is in addition to our vocation.

Sometimes, luckily, a person’s job
happens to be their vocation. Like the priesthood. Or being organist. Or a
teacher. Or an artist.

I often ask people: what is your
vocation? Not “what do you do?” Rather, what is your calling? What were you
meant to do and be?

Sadly, most vocations do not actually
involve an actual “voce” or voice. We do not get the opportunity that Samuel
has in our reading from the Hebrew scriptures.
Though, we often get to respond in the same way.

“Here I am. Do with me what you must.”

In today’s Gospel, we also find a
calling—a vocation, again with an actual “voce.” We find Philip saying to
Nathaniel, “Come and see.” And we find Jesus telling Nathaniel, “You will see
greater things than these.”

For most of us, who are not mystics,
we have still seen our share of miracles in our lives—at least if we kept our
minds and hearts and eyes open. No
doubt, there have been many miracles. No
doubt, there have been saints—true, living saints—that you have met—and still
continue to meet—and walked beside. And although you probably have not seen heaven
literally opened or angels literally “ascending and descending,” you’ve
probably, once or twice, seen the veil between this world and heaven lifted. And you probably have seen angels ascending
and descending in the guise of fellow travelers along the way.

Like Nathaniel, who would have a
series of low points in his own life (legend says he would die a particularly
horrible martyr’s death of being flayed alive, forced to walk, skinless in the
desert, before being beheaded), through it all, he kept looking. And in looking, he saw.

This is what it means to be a
disciple—a follower of Jesus. Despite
the setbacks, the illnesses, despite the people who are out to trip you up,
there are also the rewards—the high points that are better than any other high
points.

Our lives as Christians is probably
our greatest vocation. Being a Christian
means being a follower of Jesus—being a minister of Christ And being a disciple is a difficult thing at
times. No one, when we became
Christians, promised us sparkling, light-filled moments and rose gardens every
step of the way. Actually, when we
became Christians, we became Christians—all of us—in the shadow of the Cross. When we were baptized, we were marked with the
Cross.

That was not a quaint, sweet little
sentiment. It meant we were baptized
into following Jesus wherever he led us in his life and ours—the good times and
the bad. And as a result, we have faced
our lives as followers of Jesus Christ squarely and honestly.

This is no cult we belong to, that
promises us that if we do this and that we will be freed from pain and
suffering. As followers of Jesus, we
know that, Yes, bad things are going to happen to us. There will be illness, there will be setbacks,
there will be broken relationships and conflicts with others, there will be
loss and there will be death. And we
know that there will be many, many people out there who want to trip us up and
who want us to fail.

Following Jesus means being able, in
those dark moments, to look and to see. When
surrounded by darkness, we can see light. When stuck in the mire and muck of this life,
we can still look up and see those angels descending and ascending on the Son,
the One we have chosen to follow.

As I look back over these past many,
many years, I realize they have been the most productive and fruitful years of
my life. More than anything, as I look
back over these last years, I find God weaving in and out of my life. As I look back, I find God, speaking to me,
much as God spoke to Samuel in today’s reading from the Hebrew scriptures.

God, whether I was listening or not,
was calling me again and again by name. God
is calling each of us by our name. God
is calling to us again and again. And
what is our answer? Our answer is a
simple one. It simply involves, getting
up, looking and seeing, and saying to God,

“Here I am.”

Here I am.

And when do that, we will find that,
like Samuel, God is with us. And—in that
glorious moment—we will know: God will not allow one of our words to fall
useless to the ground.

Friday, January 16, 2015

+ I
am going to brutally honest with you this morning. I don’t want to be here. None
of us want to be here. I hate the fact that I have to be here this morning,
saying goodbye to Rick Holbrook. And I
can say, in all honesty, I’m angry.

I am
angry at an illness like ALS. I am angry and frustrated over the fact that
there is an illness like this. And I am very angry that ALS is what took Rick. I
can be angry. I can say I don’t want to be here. I know many of you are angry. And I know Rick
was angry about this disease.

But,
as Rick showed in his life, and we should all learn from his lesson, we can’t
let our anger get the better of us. Anger did not get the better of Rick.

And
as frustrated as I am over his disease, as sad as I am this morning about the
fact that Rick is not here with us, I am able to take consolation, as we all
are. Our consolations might seem few and
far between in this moment. But they are
there. We find consolation in the fact
that Rick did not have to suffer more than he did. There were much harder days
ahead. Rick knew that. Sandy knew that. We all knew that. And Rick was spared
those harder days.

We
also find consolation today in our faith—a faith that Rick certainly held close
to him, even in these last months. For
Rick, his faith was strong. He was
committed. His faith, in many ways, was like him. He didn’t make a big deal
about it. But quietly, strongly, firmly, it was there.

As
Sandy and I discussed this service, we went through our scripture options which
the Book of Common prayer suggests to us. And none of them seemed right, as least our
Gospel readings didn’t seem right for this particular occasion.

Finally,
after all of our discussion of Rick’s deep passion or birding, I thought of the
Gospel we actually heard this morning from Deacon Charlotte. It’s a great Gospel reading. It is Jesus the
Poet as his poetic best (he sounds almost like Walt Whitman):

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat
or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not
life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of
the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly
Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

Rick definitely understood this scripture. He saw it lived out in his own life. He saw
those birds, who were fed, who were provided by their loving God. And, ultimately, we can say, that
Rick was provided for.He was taken care of.And
all of us here, this morning, know that his value to all of us was truly great.

Rick
was a strong, independent person, to say the least. We saw it in his life. And
he was saw it in his death. We can be
angry about his death today. We can say, it was unfair. Because it was.

But
what we can’t say this morning is that the ALS was somehow victorious in all of
this. Because it wasn’t. It didn’t win out. The fact that Rick is beyond all of
that—beyond the disease, beyond the suffering, beyond the steady, consistent
loss of that disease—that is the true sign of victory. ALS was not victorious.

Who
is victorious? Christ was and is victorious. And Rick, in Christ, bolstered by
his faith in Christ, is victorious as well. In this moment, and Rick has no losses. But
only gain. Glorious, wonderful gain.

See,
that Gospel reading is right on. Do not worry about this life, and all that
this life can throw at you. Even if it is illness, and loss, and death. Don’t
worry. Because we are provided for. We are cared for. We are loved—and loved deeply.
Because, to our God, we are valuable.

That
is the lesson we take away from today. That is the lesson Rick is teaching us ,
even now, in this sad moment.

One
of the thing I loved about being an Episcopalian, is our great liturgy. The
words of our worship services really do a great job of getting right to heart
of the matter. And this funeral service
is no exception to that rule.

At the
end of this service, we will hear those wonderful words of defiance in the face
of death.

All of us go down

to the dust; yet even at the
grave we make our song: Alleluia,

alleluia, alleluia.

Now those words might seem
archaic to some people. We’ve heard those words so many times probably that
they don’t mean anything anymore. But,
if you listen closely, they are words of defiance. They are words of victory. They are words that say, for us, we are cared
for, and provided for and loved, just as Rick was. Those words speak to us and tell us that, even
in the face of all this, we can, like Rick, carry ourselves with integrity, bolstered
by our faith.

Even in the face of whatever life
may throw at me, we can almost hear Rick say, I will not let those things win. I will not let ALS
win. I will not let even death win.

“…yet even at the grave we make
our song: Alleluia,

alleluia, alleluia.”

Even you, death, will not win out
over me. Even in the face of these awful
things, I will face you with strength and a sense of victory. And, because I have faith, because I am loved
and I have loved, you will not defeat me.

Today, all that Rick Holbrook was
to us—that man of quiet strength and integrity—all of that is not lost. It is not gone. Death has not swallowed that up. Rather all of that is alive and dwells with us
who will miss him. And it dwells in Light inaccessible. Rick dwells in a place
of peace and joy, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life
everlasting. And for us who are left, we know that it awaits us as well.

See, Rick is still showing us the
way forward. He is showing us by his
very life and faith, and even his death, how to face these hardships life
throws at us. He is even showing us how
to meet these days ahead—these days in which we now must struggle with a life
in which Rick is not here with us physically any more. He is showing us to face it all with our heads held high,
bolstered by our faith and our integrity. He is showing us that, in the midst of all of
these hardships, we must do so with class and dignity and strength.

So, today, yes we are sad. Yes,
we are in pain over this loss. Yes, we ache deeply in our hearts and in our
souls. But we are also thankful today. We
are thankful for this man whom God has been gracious to let us know. We are grateful for all he has given us in our
own lives.

See, even we too, today, are
defiant. We too are loved, and taken care of. We too know that we are of great
value and, like the birds of the air, we will be cared for. There is no need to worry. Nothing this life
throws at us will defeat us.

But rather, with all this
sadness, with all this pain, we can still, like Rick, hold ourselves in
strength, Yes, even now, even here at
that grave, here in the face of sadness and loss, we sing victoriously:

Sunday, January 11, 2015

+ So, I don’t know about you, but, doesn’t it seem like Christmas
is already a long time ago? Of course, for us, as Christians, the Christmas
season just ended. But Christmas Eve and Christmas Day seem like a long time
ago. We now are in this very long, very
cold month of January. I have always said, I think January is my very least
favorite month of the year. But, we find
ways to go on.

For me, it’s the liturgical calendar. Our
regular cycle of feasts and fasts and saints days help me get through this
cold, bleak time. And right now, for us, we’re in this season of Epiphany. This past Tuesday was the actual Feast of the
Epiphany.

Epiphany is a beautiful feast, though
I think it’s a bit anti-climactic, following Christmas. My dear friend, Fr. John-Julian, an Episcopal
priest and a member of the Order of Julian of Norwich in Wisconsin, wrote
wonderfully about Epiphany. He starts
out by reminding us that this word, Epiphany, comes from the Greek word
epiphaneia, which means, “manifestation” or “showing forth”. He then goes on to explain that the Epiphany
commemorates four manifestations of Christ in his life:

1) The adoration of Shepherds at the manger in Bethlehem, which we
commemorated essentially on Christmas Eve

2) The Visit of the Magi or the Three Kings, which is very much
the traditional understanding of what Epiphany is.

3) Jesus baptism by John the Baptists in the River Jordan, which
we commemorate this morning.

And 4) Jesus’ first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.

In today’s Gospel reading, we find what Fr. John-Julian and many
other Christian thinkers call a Theophany. Theophany means “A manifestation of God”, but
today we see it in a very profound way. We
actually find the very Trinity—Father, Son and holy Spirit—being revealed—the
Father, in the voice that proclaims, “You are…my Beloved; with you I am well
pleased,” the Son in the flesh of Jesus and the Holy Spirit as the dove that
descends upon Jesus. It is an incredible event—in the lives of those first
followers and in our lives as Christians as well.

Here the standard is set. In this moment, it has all come together. In this moment, it is all very clear how this
process is happening. Here the
breakthrough has happened. For us it’s important because we too are still
experiencing the benefits of that event. From now on, this is essentially what was
spoken to each of us at our own baptisms:

“You are my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

For most of us, we have no doubt taken for granted our baptisms,
much as we have taken for granted water itself.

Yes, I know: I preach a lot about
baptism. And I don’t just mean that I
preach a lot about how much I like doing baptisms. I preach often about how important each of our
baptisms are to us because they are important. In a sense what happened at Jesus’ baptism
happened at our baptisms as well. At
each of our baptisms, a theophany happened. And when we realize that, we also realize that
Baptism is THE defining moment in our lives as Christians.

Whether we remember the event or not, it was the moment when our
lives changed. It was the moment we
became new. It was, truly, our second birth.

I am so happy that we do something as simple as commemorate our
baptisms here at St. Stephen’s. I ask on a regular basis for you to search out
the dates of your baptisms. And we
remember those dates in our prayers here in the Eucharist each Sunday. I like to encourage people to find out the
date of their baptism. Of course, as you know, I always look for a reason to
celebrate, but baptism anniversaries are truly great opportunities to
celebrate. Why shouldn’t we celebrate the theophanies of our lives, those
manifestations of God in our own lives?

There was a bond formed with God in
our Baptism. In our current Prayer Book
this bond is probably best defined. After
the Baptism, when the priest traces a cross on the newly baptized person’s
forehead, she or he says, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and
marked as Christ’s own for ever.” This is essential to our belief of what
happens at baptism.

In baptism, we are all marked as
Christ’s own. For ever. It is a bond that can never be broken. We can
try to break it as we please. We can struggle under that bond. We can squirm and resist it. We can try to escape it. But the simple fact is this: we can’t. For ever is for ever. No matter how much we
may turn our backs on Christ, Christ never turns his back on us. No matter how much we try to turn away from
Christ, to deny Christ, to pick Christ apart and make Christ something other
than who he is, Christ never turns his back on us. Christ never denies us.

What Baptism shows us, more than anything else, is that we always
belong to Christ. It is shows us that
Christ will never deny us or turn away from us. It shows us that, no matter what we might do,
we will always be Christ’s. Always. For ever.

In this way, Baptism is truly the great equalizer. In those waters, we are all bathed—no matter
who we are and what we are. We all
emerged from those waters on the same ground—as equals. And, as equals, we are not expected to just
sit around, hugging ourselves and basking in the glow of the confidence that we
are Christ’s own possession. As equals,
made equal in the waters of baptism, we are then compelled to go out into the
world and treat each others as equals. And we remind ourselves of this fact in
others ways.

This coming Thursday night, we will be
having the Vigil service for Rick Holbrook. In that service, there of course
will be a time for people to get up and speak about Rick. But before any of
that, we, as the church, will receive his ashes. And we will cover the urn with
his ashes with a white pall—a white cloth. And the ashes will be sprinkled with
holy water.

Everyone who is buried from St.
Stephen’s has a pall placed either on their urn or coffin. The pall is a beautiful
remembrance of our baptism. And, in that moment when the pall is placed, it
does not matter how ornate, how expensive, how poor or simple the coffin or urn
are. The pall, as a symbol of baptism,
is the great equalizer. No one is better or less under that pall. We are all
equal and all precious and deeply loved by our God.

And that is also the case with our
baptism. In the same waters all of us,
rich or poor, physically perfect or imperfect, were washed. All of us came out
of those waters reminded that we are all loved and cherished by our God.

For us at St. Stephen’s, Baptism is
not some quaint dedication ceremony. It
is the event that still provokes us and compels us to go out into the world and
make a difference in it. Our baptism
doesn’t set us apart as a special people above everyone else. It forces us out into the world to be a part
of the world and, by doing so, to transform the world.

So, in those waters of baptism, something incredible happened for
us. We went into those waters one
person, and emerged from those waters as something else completely. It was an incredible moment in our lives, just
as it was in the life of Jesus, who led the way and showed us that Baptism was
an incredible outpouring of God’s love and light into our lives.

So, with this knowledge of how important it is, let us each take
the time to meditate and think about our own baptisms and the implications this
incredible event had and still has in our lives.

When you enter this church, and when
you leave it, pay attention to the baptismal font in the narthex and the
blessed water in it. Touch that water,
bless yourselves with it, and when you do, remember you do so as a reminder of
that wonderful event in your life which marked you forever as Christ’s very
own. And let that water be a reminder to
you that you are called to go now from this church and from this Eucharist we
have shared in, to love. To love, full and completely. To realize that we are equally loved by God—no
matter who we are or what we are.

And as we go from here, let us listen
for those words—those beautiful, lulling words—that are spoken to each of us,
with love and acceptance:

Sunday, January 4, 2015

+ I know. I’ve been doing this a lot lately.
But be patient. Bear with me. We’re
going back in time one again. It’s not that long of a trip, though. We’re only
going back twenty years.

We’re going back to Sunday, January 8,
1995. Most of us can remember 1995. It doesn’t seem all that long ago.

One of the top movies were Dumb and Dumber, I remember the music I was listening
to at that time included a lot of R.E.M and Weezer, and Beck and the Red Hot
Chili Peppers. MTV still played music videos.

But on that Sunday, I had a very
important thing happen to me. On that Sunday, I attended my first Episcopal
church service. I was 25 years year old. My second book of poems, The Loneliness of Blizzards, was about
to published. But certainly, I was searching for…something.

Well, on that Sunday, I found it. And
I found it. Right here. At St. Stephen’s. The first Episcopal church service I
ever attended was right here at St. Stephen’s.

On that very cold, January morning, I remember
where I parked. I parked on the west
street. Back then, we did not have the narthex and entry way we have now. Back then, there was a door on the west side
of the church which was the main entrance.

I was a little chicken about attending
new churches so I asked my mother to attend with me. And we got here early. There
was no body here except for one person. James was here that morning.

And I remembered very clearly that,
after years of searching, years of trying out many other things, I had finally
found my spiritual home in the Episcopal Church. I loved the Eucharist. I loved
that it was a woman priest who was celebrating—Sandi Holmberg was the Rector at
that time. I loved the Book of Common
Prayer. I loved the whole thing. And I
was hooked.

The weirdest thing of course is that
the 25 year old Jamie who came to this church that morning in 1995 would never,
ever, in a million years, believe that he would one day be the Priest here at
St. Stephen’s. And probably nobody else
who encountered that grungy 25 year old in his plaid flannel that morning would’ve
thought so either. But here it is, and
here I am, and here we all are.

It has been a long and incredible
journey since that morning in 1995. Not an easy journey by any sense of the
word. I think it’s appropriate, as I ponder my own weird journey, that we encounter
another strange journey.

In our Gospel reading this morning, there
is a journey to the holy Family. Certainly,
the story of the magi, searching for God in this child, is a lot more dramatic
than mine—more dramatic than anything that could happen to any of us. Things
like that don’t happen in our lives. Most
of us would not give up everything to follow a star in the sky. Most of us could not be who Joseph is this
morning. Already he has to deal with his
fiancée becoming pregnant, dreams of divine beings who tell him what to do, a
child (which is not his) being born under incredible circumstances.

And now, this. Kings bowing down to tis child. Obviously, the child is special. Imagine how exotic and strange this must’ve
seemed to a man like Joseph who lived his entire lives in Palestine.

But the story means nothing to us if
we don’t make it our own, to some extent. It becomes real for us when we realize that we
too are the Magi to some extent. They did
what they did, they went where they blindly, to some extent. They went into their future together uncertain
of what was going to happen.

But somehow, in the midst of this
blindness, in the midst of this uncertainty, they were being sustained. They knew, somehow, that it would all work
out. They knew beyond a doubt that something
awaited them at the end of their journey. That is what we can take away with us from
this story.

Certainly, as we head into the great unknown
of this new year of 2015, we find ourselves feeling somewhat like the Magi no
doubt did as they made their way toward that star. I can tell you, back in 1995, I too felt I was
heading into my very uncertain future. But
I too was following a star back then. I
didn’t know why or how I was going to do it. But I just knew that I had to make
that journey. But we know that as we go
forward, like the Magi, we are led by God.

God is calling us forward, calling us
into our future, calling us to venture into the unknown. We are also being called to do so with
absolute trust in God’s mercy. In this story, we find examples abounding.

Joseph is an example to us of that
wholehearted trust in God’s mercy. He
has heeded the voice of the angel and does what was commanded of him, no matter
how frightening and uncertain these moves must have been. He has done what God lead him to do and by
doing so he saves this child—this child he knows isn’t his, this child who has
come to him in such mysterious and amazing circumstances.

Mary too is a wonderful example. She seems, at first glance, to be kind of a
peripheral character in the story. No
more poetry is coming from her mouth as it did when she sang the Magnificat to
God when the angel announced to her that she would be bearing this child Jesus.
There are no words at all from her either
in this story. But what we do find is
that she is living out, by her very life, the “yes” she made to that angel when
it was announced to her that she would bear this Child that she now holds close
to her.

Mary is an example to us that,
occasionally, when forces beyond our understanding begin to work, all we must
do at times is simply and quietly heed God’s command. There are times for poetry and there are times
when poetry just isn’t needed. When the
Child was formed in her womb, how could she not sing out with beautiful poetry?
Now, with kings and wise men and angels
bowing at the feet of her child, she simply sits in quietness and awe—holding
Jesus close to her.

We too should do the same as we enter
into this long winter season. There will
be more bitter cold, more snow, more icy streets and roads before us before the
thaw comes to us. In our own lives, in
this time in which everything seems to uncertain and up-in-the-air, we can go
forward either in fear or in quiet confidence, like Mary. We can do so, holding the God who comes to us
in Jesus close to us, against our beating, anxious hearts.

Like her, we have choices. We can go
into that future, kicking and screaming, our heels dug in. Or we can go quietly
and with dignity, holding our greatest hope and joy to us as we are led forward
by a star that might, at times, seem
vague.

Back in 1995, I no idea what the
future would hold for me. I didn’t know then
that in ten years I would be a priest, that in 20 years I would be the priest
of this congregation. But I knew there
was star shining ahead for me. And here
I am.

The same is true of all of us. The future lies ahead of us. We know that is not an easy future. It is not a future without pain and hardships
and much more work to do, more miles to cover. There are long days and equally long nights
lying before us. But that same future
contains, also, joy and fulfillment and loved ones. That future contains laughter and moments of
exquisite beauty. That future contains
love, in whatever ways it may come to us. That future that contains the rest of this
long, cold winter, also contains the spring thaw and a glorious summer.

So, like the Magi, let us get up and
follow that star, wherever it may lead, even into an uncertain future. Like Joseph, let us heed the calling to also go
wherever God leads. Like Mary, let us be
led into that future with quiet dignity. Let us go, with that star shining brightly
ahead of us. With God leading us, the
future is more glorious than we, in this cold, snowy moment, can even begin to
understand or appreciate.

About Me

Jamie Parsley is an Episcopal priest & poet. He is the author of twelve books of poems. In 2004, he was named an Associate Poet Laureate of North Dakota. He currently serves as the Priest-in-Charge of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Fargo, North Dakota.